Posted on

The questions we need to be asking about Islamic State

http://bit.ly/1Tsz4mm

The questions we need to be asking about Islamic State

December 6, 2015

The Sunday Telegraph

AS ISIS peddles conspiracy marketing that they are the masterminds behind the recent spate of all terrorist attacks, another conspiracy of silence abounds in our western alliance.

In western conversations, we shine a light on the heated issue of where will the ISIS “menace” strike next.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull reminded “Australians to be aware that a terrorist incident on our soil remains likely”, despite his calm and calculated reassurances.

But we don’t shine a light on the taboo questions that explain how ISIS does not thrive in a vacuum, but is dependent on a supply chain.

We need to reject the simplistic narrative about ISIS as a malevolent cancer that can be surgically amputated.

A bolder set of questions will enlighten us that many of our allies have blood on their hands and are hypocritical for condemning ISIS publicly but aiding them privately.

Let’s shed light on who is funnelling ISIS with funds and weapons. The oil-rich Gulf states of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have supplied ammunition and salaries to the Free Syrian Army in 2012.

They should have known the ancient Arab axiom, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that ISIS would ultimately confiscate these weapons. Ironically, ISIS propaganda videos have flaunted American weapons which they now point at the manufacturing country.

Let’s shed light on which border is allowing ISIS into Syria. The infiltrations are mostly via Turkey which has allowed ‘jihadists’ and weapons across its border.

We need to shed light on who is funding the Jihadis fighting for Islamic State, Joseph Wakim says.

It has also hosted the launch of ISIS missiles into Kobane in Syria.

Therefore, we need to be asking why Turkey has aided and abetted ISIS supply chain.

Let’s shed light on who is buying the $50 million per month of Syrian crude oil that ISIS have seized. It appears that middlemen smuggle the oil to Turkey, Iran and even the Syrian government.

Let’s shed light on why the US President vows to ‘degrade’ before he destroys ISIS. It suggests that ISIS is serving some purpose in weakening the Syrian army and destabilising the Syrian government.

If they are as evil and threatening as the US rhetoric purports, then surely they need to be urgently obliterated, not gradually disarmed.

This may explain why the Russian jets apparently achieved in one week what the USA failed to achieve in a year of anti-ISIS bombings in Syria.

Let’s shed light on why ISIS have not vowed to rescue their Sunni brothers in Gaza against Israel.

Instead, we see ISIS propaganda threaten the ‘tyrants of Hamas’ with ‘the rule of sharia’. If ISIS genuinely cared about protecting its Muslim brothers from non-believers, Palestinians should be high on the list to be rescued rather than to be threatened.

If they are as evil and threatening as the US rhetoric purports, then surely they need to be urgently obliterated, not gradually disarmed.

Let’s shed light on why the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia is not actively accommodated the Syrian refugees.

Surely, it would make more sense that the predominantly Sunni Syrians seek citizenship in Saudi Arabia which already shares the Arab proximity, Arabic language, Sunni faith, and recognisable qualifications.

Saudi Arabia is not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees and claims to oppose refugee status to these Syrians ‘to ensure their safety and dignity’.

It appears that the Syrian exodus prefers the prospect of distant European citizenship than nearby Saudi foreign labour.

When we shine a light on these darker tunnels that feed ISIS, we replace fear with facts.

 

Posted on

Peers vital to turning troubled teens from jihad

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/peers-vital-to-turning-troubled-teens-from-jihad/story-fni0ffsx-1227558178885

http://m.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-path-of-least-resistance-produces-least-results-in-fighting-radicalisation/story-fnihsr9v-1227557973356?from=google_rss#load-story-comments

http://bit.ly/1jLv2Kf

Herald Sun and Courier Mail, 6 October 2015

 

Path of least resistance produces least results in fighting radicalisation

THE gnashing of teeth over another radicalised teenager and another innocent fatality has triggered questions on how this could have been averted. While Strike Force Fellow rewinds the video footage in this critical incident investigation, authority figures rewind the recent years to see how this angry kid escaped their radars.

These authorities include police, politicians, imams and professionals who work with youth. Too often, the incubation takes place out of their gaze in the darkness of a bedroom and the glow of a laptop, where one beckoning voice to take up arms is amplified, while voices of reason are drowned out.

The counter-radicalisation authorities have knocked on many doors but they are the doors of least resistance and have produced the least results.

Ministers visiting respected imams have produced many meetings, consultations and photographs. But breaking bread together has not broken the radicalisation pathway.

These imams are often locked up in offices, late at night, holding committee meetings, planning religious events and fielding media questions. Like clergy in other faiths, they are more likely to be sitting at a boardroom table than sitting opposite an angry teenager who refuses to pray at the mosque.

ISIS recruitment videos have been “successful” because they use Western youth as their beckoning mouthpieces, appealing in English to their peers that they understand their isolation: “For all my brothers living in the West, I know how you feel … you feel depressed … the cure for the depression is jihad.”

ISIS recruitment videos have been “successful” because they use western youth as their beckoning mouthpieces, appealing in English to their peers that they understand their isolation.

The young recruiters also tell their vulnerable targets not to listen to their imams or their parents. Hence, the youth are less likely to pray in the traditional mosques.

Community engagement with Muslim elders renders a similar result. Having been involved in these honorary roles for more than 25 years, we could point bureaucrats in the right direction and we could organise forums but we are unlikely to be personally acquainted with the youth in question.

Consulting with social workers and youth workers is a step closer to the grassroots but the teenagers in these environments have at least broken their social isolation and hear a diversity of voices. The youth on dangerous pathways are less likely to attend the PCYC or sports clubs but they may be in their social neighbourhood.

The suggestion by Attorney-General George Brandis that school teachers could be trained to “spot a jihadi” oversimplifies a complex pathway that is too often clandestine. Memos could be issued about this “de-radicalisation in schools strategy” but it risks creating false alarms and Islamophobia in school grounds, while missing other forms of radicalisation such as white supremacy. Engaging with all these adult groups who understand their responsibility to collaborate with police and politicians is the well-worn path but the path to radicalised youth may require detouring off these smooth surfaces.

When authorities intercept a teenager on this radicalisation path, there is often moral panic about homegrown jihadis and the threat that this dangerous disease may be contagious. But that situation presents a perfect opportunity to learn about the pathway from an “expert”. Which websites did they visit? What were they promised? Who are their recruiters? Such a person could be galvanised and later deployed as the frontline of defence in the grassroots and cyberspace resistance against radicalisation.

The defecting and disillusioned jihadis who have renounced ISIS are the true “experts” whose first-hand testimony from behind bars could be recorded as a counter-narrative. When isolated youth key in trigger words in the search engine of their computers, this pop-up video could automatically appear, from youth to youth, warning their peers about the three-dimensional reality, compared with the two-dimensional rhetoric.

These credible counter-narrative videos could refer to the imprisonment resulting from breaking the foreign fighters legislation.

They can inoculate other vulnerable youth against this dead-end street that was sold as a path to paradise. Youth peers are more likely to derail the radicalisation pathway by planting seeds of doubt and creating opportunities to offer non-violent alternatives to redressing isolation and anger.

This may include sports groups, political parties, prayer groups, social justice groups and even expert work in de-radicalisation.

In my first job as a street worker with runaway youth, my most effective outreach was done by former street kids whose understanding of the plight and emotions was lifesaving.

In my book What My Daughters Taught Me, I explain how teenagers have so much to teach – if we open our ears and listen. By helping me to become a better widowed parent with mutual honesty and respect, I did not need to discover any dark secrets second-hand.

Youth are a fountain of wisdom, waiting to be heard.

Posted on

If we treat people as outsiders, they become outsiders

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/if-we-treat-people-as-outsiders-they-become-outsiders-20151004-gk0sel.html

http://bit.ly/1L1yDL0

 

If we treat people as outsiders, they become outsiders

October 4, 2015

Anti-Muslim vitriol plays into the hands of radicalisation recruiters.

When an incident is imbued with a single drop of Islam, it apparently explains everything, and blinds us from asking the right questions.

We are so hasty to roll out the loaded labels, such as “terrorist” and “gunman”, even when referring to a 15-year-old boy. If Farhad Khalil Mohammad Jabar was a gun-wielding white teenager in school uniform, rather than a brown teenager in a black robe, would we have labelled him a mixed-up kid with mental problems or a radicalised, cold-blooded terrorist?

If a white teenager had opened fire inside a mosque, would we have labelled him an angry misguided youth?

If we are serious in wanting to break this cycle of violence and acts of terror, we need to stop using dehumanising labels and stop absolving ourselves by  shifting blame to Islam.

The complex reality is that many factors line up to trigger such violent acts, including broken families, mental health, perceived lack of alternatives, current circumstances, loneliness, detachment, exposure to violent videos and a twisted moral compass that defines heroism as a violent means towards a rewarding end. These are the push factors that recruiters exploit, especially if the recruit is vulnerable and lacks a good parent.

The pull factors include the lure of adventure, power, belonging, respect, weapons and rewards in paradise. They glorify acts of “warriors” and encourage copycat behaviour.

Too often, the “go to” people for deradicalisation have been community elders, established imams and elected presidents. But the real “experts” on this issue are the youth and their peers, who are more likely to understand and circumvent the cycle.

Youth peers are more likely to derail the radicalisation pathway by planting seeds of doubt and offering other pathways towards redressing injustices. These might include youth groups, political parties, fundraising for charities and letter writing.

Islamophobia might inadvertently feed into the recruitment propaganda, with predators reminding their targets: “We told you that they hate you, you are not welcome, you will never be one of them. Come home to us, come join your brothers and sisters where you will feel welcome, loved and honoured.”

Islamophobia and bombardment with hate messages communicating that Australia does not trust Muslims push “them” to the margins.

Our self-appointed vigilantes should stop giving oxygen to these lethal messages online and on talkback. Stop pushing people over the edge. Stop pushing people to denounce every crime committed by Muslims. Stop pushing people to feel that they are collectively guilty until proven innocent. Stop pushing people towards radicalisation and towards the Islamic State recruitment propaganda. If we treat people as outsiders, they become outsiders.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was keen to point out that venting at Muslims was not the solution to radicalised teenagers, as it could, ironically, be one of the causes.

“We must not vilify or blame the entire Muslim community … our absolutely necessary partners in combating this type of violent extremism.” Indeed, Muslim youth could be our frontline of defence.

This act of leadership was necessary, given the virulent online commentary about deporting Muslims, blocking the 12,000 Syrian refugees, and banning the religion. Any Muslim reading these rants may realise that they reinforce the message of the radicalisation recruiters.

NSW Premier Mike Baird is correct that radicalisation is a global issue and we need to remain open to ideas.

For a start, radicalisation and violent extremism have been treated as a national security issues by federal bureaucracies in Australia. In other countries, radicalisation is treated as a social issue, to be redressed from the ground up, in local neighbourhoods, using peer-to-peer influence as the frontline “weapon”.

At a community-initiated forum on radicalisation last Tuesday, youth, police and community leaders pooled their collective experiences to understand the cycle in order to break the cycle.

We recognise there is no one pathway to radicalisation, and Muslims have no monopoly, given the prevalence of white supremacists.

Hence, there is a need to build resistance and resilience among youth against the predators and recruiters.

The critical incident investigation by NSW Police, Strike Force Fellow, is yet to determine the motivation of the gun-wielding teenager. Just because a person chooses to pray at a mosque, or any place of worship, does not render that place a breeding ground of radicalisation. On the contrary, the Parramatta mosque willingly opened its doors, because it seeks the same solution as the rest of society.

But speculation based solely on religion offers no solutions. And it could perpetuate the problem.

Posted on

Syrian conflict proving to be an international, not civil, war

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-syrian-conflict-proving-to-be-an-international-not-civil-war/story-fnihsr9v-1227518301884

http://bit.ly/1LWw4Mz

Opinion: Syrian conflict proving to be an international, not civil, war

September 9, 2015

The Courier-Mail

FOR more than three years many voices, including my own, have warned about the Arab Spring turning sour, the morphing of the anti-Assad forces in Syria from pro-democracy to pro-theocracy, the leaking of Western weapons into the wrong hands and the leaking of foreign fighters from Australia.

The Australian Government was twice visited by peace activist Mother Agnes Miriam who advocated Mussalaha – a 10-point plan towards reconciliation within Syria. Voices such as hers and mine were criticised for daring to question the dominant and simplistic narrative of the Arab Spring, but still we cautioned this was not a Syrian civil war, but an international war involving mercenaries and jihadists, where some stakeholders were speaking peace above the table but funnelling weapons and funds under it.

The concerns behind the warnings have materialised. The proof is in the graphic images of human suffering and Europeans opening their borders to a refugee flood.

Here, Australia’s border protection regime has served to dehumanise those seeking refuge on our shores. We have been conditioned to not see past the boats. The faces, names and stories of those inside the boats are obscured. But when a photo from Europe of a dead Syrian child washed up on a Turkish beach makes all the front pages, the dehumanised are re-humanised and we are suddenly outraged.

Whether it is the emblematic pictures of the drowned toddler, Aylan Kurdi, or a father, Abdul Halim Attar, a Palestinian refugee from Yarmouk in Syria, selling pens on a Beirut street, why are we suddenly shocked by these images when we have been warned about this for years? Yet suddenly we have a humanitarian catastrophe in Syria. Suddenly, ISIS is too dangerous and we need to intervene more. Suddenly, the asylum seekers may be genuine and need to be accommodated.

Perhaps Germany’s open arms have shown up our clenched fists when it comes to the treatment of these asylum seekers? Perhaps Pope Francis’s call for each European parish to “take in one family” has revealed the moral dilemma now facing our Australian Catholic “Captain”?

By assisting the US in air strikes in Syria, we may be compounding the problem we are ostensibly now seeking to redress. Did our military intervention in neighbouring Iraq bring about democracy and peace, or sow seeds for more bloodshed? Can we guarantee that more innocent Syrian civilians will not be killed in the crossfire?

Rather than increasing the area of our bombing and stopping the boats, we should stop the causes of the wars that cause the boats. We should be asking whose borders are allowing ISIS fighters and their weapons to “leak” into Syria? We should be asking who in the West and elsewhere is buying the oil and looted antiquities sold by ISIS.

Instead of (or as well as) debating about our refugee intake, we should be pressing the wealthy Middle East Gulf states, which aided and abetted the armed opposition to the Syrian Government, to take in their fair share of Syrians as well.

Joseph Wakim, a founder of the Australian Arabic Council, is a freelance writer

 

Posted on

Mid-East policy ‘cooked up’ ISIS

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=17505

Online Opinion, 14 July 2015

 

Once upon a time, there was the Arab Spring … and they lived unhappily ever after. On 18 March 2011, Syrian youth ignited a revolution with graffiti in Dar’aa – the regime must fall. The inferno has now killed over 200,000 people and displaced nearly four million.

It is easy to blame IS militants for the problem, but they are the symptom of foreign policies that resemble BBQ knobs. Power brokers are upgraded and degraded to achieve the desired temperature and power balance.

Three years ago, Mother Agnes Miriam visited Australia from Syria and warned about the emptying of Christians in the Middle East. She predicted that Christians would be the casualty of the Arab Spring. Enough beheading videos have been posted online to bring home this tragic truth.

She also warned that the “Arab Spring” had been “hijacked by foreign Islamist mercenaries, with strong support from Western countries.”

Indeed, the Syrian youth who started the revolution were hijacked by the Free Syrian Army who were in turn hijacked by the non-Syrian Salafists who were in turn hijacked by the foreign fighters of al Qaeda and their offshoot the ‘Islamic State.’ There is nothing civil about the war in Syria.

Arab strongmen and ‘flames’ are treated like burners of a BBQ, to be ignited then extinguished, armed then disarmed, elevated then bombed, allies then enemies.

The US backed coalition, including Australia, will keep adjusting the BBQ knobs to ensure their two main allies remain protected: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The same two countries that the US dares not criticise for their human rights violations.

So long as the Arabs are fighting each other, and their flames become weaker, they should not pose any threat to Israel’s military supremacy in the neighbourhood.

Why have al Qaeda and all its offshoots, jihadists and mercenaries flocked to fight alongside their Sunni brothers in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, and in the Levant, but they have never rushed to rescue their Sunni brothers in Palestine, especially in Gaza?

On the eve of Sept 11 last year, US President Barack Obama condemned ISIS and its “acts of barbarism”, referring to it as a “terrorist organisation, pure and simple.” So why vow to gradually degrade and ultimately destroy rather than immediately destroy?

The black box of the BBQ reveals the history of those playing with the temperature control knobs.

On 20 December 1983, when Iraq fought Iran after the Islamic revolution, US special envoy Donald Rumsfeld did a handshake deal with Saddam Hussein. Iraq was upgraded.

But on 2 August 1990 when Hussein flexed his muscles into Kuwait, he had to be degraded then ultimately extinguished.

Between 1986 and 1989, the CIA funneled $500 million in weapons into Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden fought with his Mujaheddin militants to expel the Communist Russian invasion during the Cold War. Let’s upgrade Afghanistan.

But on 11 September 2001 when Bin Laden’s militants morphed into al-Qaeda and flexed their muscles into the USA with terrorist attacks, they had to be degraded and this public enemy number was ultimately extinguished.

Since 2011, the US-Saudi-Qatar donors have aided and abetted the anti-Assad mercenaries. In 2014, the ISIS monster flaunted its US equipment that it has seized “in our pockets” and now needs to be degraded.

The control of the BBQ knobs was highlighted when Sunni Salafists took up arms in Iraq against the US-backed Malaki government and they were condemned as insurgents.

But if those same Salafists stepped across the border into Syria, they were suddenly praised as rebels fighting a dictator, fighting on the same side as the US.

Too often, the US and its allies speak of peace, diplomacy and democracy above the table, but they funnel aid and arms under the table. Then they wash their hands and call it civil war and sectarian war.

The US-Saudi-Qatar alliance intended their pipelines of weapons and funds to reach the Free Syrian Army in order to degrade Iran’s greatest ally in the region. But their ‘intelligence’ must have known what local Arabs already knew: these pipelines were leaking.

These dangerous toys would land in the hands of Al Nusra boys, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, and ultimately be confiscated by ISIS.

We fan their flames if we give them oxygen, and our media is their oxygen, inadvertently paying for their global recruitment and fear campaign.

Within Arab conversations, cynicism prevails about the cyclical and sickening pretext to war: “We in the West will save you from the monster (that we created)”.

Enough of the BBQ of Arab lands, enough of the incineration of Arab people. It is time to learn the lessons from the BBQ’s black box. Otherwise innocent Arab people will be condemned to live and die unhappily ever after as BBQ knobs turn around them.

 

 

Posted on

War. What (or who) is it good for?

http://thehoopla.com.au/war-good-2/24th October 2014

WAR. WHAT (OR WHO) IS IT GOOD FOR?

October 24, 2014

The catchcry of the 1970 protest anthem is that war is good for absolutely nothing “’cause it means destruction of innocent lives … [and] tears to thousands of mothers’ eyes.”

This may have been the answer by popular culture during the Vietnam War, but many profiteers would now answer the same question by rubbing their hands.

While the most obvious beneficiaries are the weapons manufacturers, many others may join their counter-chorus “war is absolutely good for us.”

In this largely untold ‘success’ story, which requires the joining of many dots, the numbers are staggering and make a mockery of our morals.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military spending in 2013 reached about (US)$1.75 trillion. The biggest slice is eaten by the USA (37 per cent), followed by China (11 per cent) then Russia (5 per cent).

This lopsided ledger is more glaring when seven of the world’s top 10 weapons exporters are based in the USA such as Boeing, Raytheon and General Dynamics. The biggest of these is Lockheed Martin, whose sales reached $36.3 billion in 2013 and whose stock price reached an all-time high at $180.74 on 19 September 2014. While they make the

Hellfire missiles used in drone strikes, other US giants such as Northrop Grumman make the Global Hawk surveillance drones.

When US President Barack Obama declares war on ISIS militants, these stakeholders and their shareholders queue up for the “humanitarian mission”. In the first night of airstrikes on ISIS targets in Syria on 22 September, the US dropped about 200 munitions and cruise missiles that were ‘Made in USA.’ They gave a new meaning to ‘launching’ new products on the market. As Operation Inherent Resolve intensified, costing the US $7.5 million per day, this created immediate demands for restocking arsenals and maintaining aircraft, manned and unmanned.

The White House now requests a further $500 million from the Pentagon to train, arm and resurrect the ‘rebel’ groups in Syria – the same motley crew would be called ‘insurgents’ across the border in Iraq. The extra funds would lead to requests for tender where the same defence companies bid for government contracts.

With the wars involving Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel, Middle East spending on weapons has increased by 56 per cent over the last 10 years. While thousands lost their lives and homes, there is no prize for guessing who won the selling prize.

Within the same supply chain, intelligence contractors are vital partners and profiteers.

They provide “ground based and airborne reconnaissance and electronic intelligence collection.” Their high resolution satellite imagery provides the eyes and ears to US pilots and drones to find their targets. The US has an annual intelligence budget of $70 billion, of which about 70 per cent is outsourced to private contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton for counter-terrorism, homeland security and mining data.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has also pledged a $630 million boost to security agencies. When he signals that the commitment may “take an unspecified and potentially quite long period of time”, contractors may hear ka-ching.

Further down the same supply chain, governments may receive secondary benefits. A war may be an effective distraction from domestic issues (blocked budget bills) and may provide politicians a bounce in the polls. Political parties also benefit from political donations ahead of elections, such as the $130 million spent on ‘lobbying’ by US defence companies in 2012.

A dark profiteer of war is encapsulated by the 2003 slogan “No blood for oil” during the invasion of Iraq. This country had some of the world’s largest oil reserves which were nationalised and closed to Western companies.

Prior to becoming US vice president in 2001, Dick Cheney was chairman of the Texas based oil company Halliburton. Soon after assuming office, he warned that the US was facing “unprecedented energy price vulnerability” caused by “Iraq turning its taps on and off when it felt such action was in its strategic interest to do so.”

Similarly, visiting UK officials concluded that Iraq should be “open and attractive to foreign investment, with appropriate arrangements for the exploitation of new fields.” Indeed, exploit was the apt word as the “weapons of mass destruction” pretext led to privatisation of Iraqi oil production by foreign firms such as Halliburton, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell.

In 2007, former US Senator Chuck Nagel conceded: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are.”

This is akin to rape of a nation’s natural resources so that foreigners can reap the financial rewards. Although Iraq’s oil production has increased by over 40 per cent over the last five years, about 80 per cent is exported out of the country, along with the potential benefits to Iraqis.

This begs the question: are the US troops stationed in the region to ward off insurgents, or to ward off anyone who approaches their oil supply chain and sea lanes?

If these are the winners of wars, who are the losers? In Iraq, it is the citizens as one in four still live in poverty, if they survived the spiralling wars.

What is war good for? Even if it appears good to line people’s pockets and good to stimulate sophisticated technologies, anything that means destruction of innocent lives can never be ‘good.’

The song still stands: war is ‘good’ for absolutely nothing.

Posted on

Islamic State is a creation like Frankenstein’s monster

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/islamic-state-is-a-creation-like-frankensteins-monster-20140922-10k8f4.html

http://bit.ly/1x3nGFU

 

Islamic State is a creation like Frankenstein’s monster

Joseph Wakim

Sydney Morning Herald, 23 September 2014

 

“We’ve seen this before. Extremists, foreign fighters returning home, responsible for terrorist attacks in our region.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop issued this warning to the United Nations Security Council last Friday regarding the threat posed by Islamic State beyond its caliphate.

But if earlier warnings were heeded, the crisis of the Islamic State monster could have been averted. Three years ago, Arab voices warned “we’ve seen this before”.

From Syria, Mother Agnes-Mariam warned that the Arab Spring had been “hijacked by foreign Islamist mercenaries, with strong support from Western countries”. In newspaper columns at the time I warned these Salafists were exploiting the sectarian fault lines to impose a theocracy, not a democracy.

Such warnings were ignored and these militants morphed into the monster we now know as Islamic State, or sometimes as ISIL.

Although the US-Saudi-Qatar alliance intended their pipelines of weapons and funds to reach the Free Syrian Army, their “intelligence” must have shown what local Arabs already knew: the pipelines were leaking. These dangerous toys would land in the hands of Al Nusra Front, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda, and ultimately Islamic State, which now reigns supreme.

For veteran Arab advocates, this pattern is a deja vu: the West aids and abets mercenaries to emasculate a monster, until the mercenaries become the next monster that the West needs to “degrade and ultimately destroy”. But we are rarely asked to diagnose the causes of wars in our ancestral birthplace because the bloodstains may lead to the US and its regional allies. Instead, we are asked about who is bleeding on the streets.

We need to feed the shock horror stories as if it was a scoreboard of “team Australia” versus “unwelcome visitors”. But it should be no shock at all. As in the 1991 war on Iraq and the 2001 war on terrorism, Muslims and Arabs are conflated into one malevolent monolith. They are wedged between two media imperatives: the toxic talkback that poisons our airwaves with stories on Muslim villains, which in turn fill pages with photos of Muslim victims.

We roll our eyes as we roll out the same ugly examples. Last Thursday, a senior Imam leading a group of Hajj pilgrims was detained by Customs at Sydney Airport for a “routine baggage check”, which caused him to miss his flight. The Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim has received a written death threat depicting bleeding swords. Again, graffiti on mosques, egging of homes, threats by mail, and drive-by bigotry have confirmed that some see this as open season to terrorise Muslims and give them a “taste of their own medicine”. Again, an Islamophobia register has been opened.

While one motorist flaunting a black flag threatened to slaughter Christians at my children’s Catholic school last Tuesday, another peace-loving Muslim offered a bouquet to express his disgust.

As Prime Minister, Tony Abbott needs to send a blunt message to the perpetrators: “Have a good, long, hard look at yourselves,” because team Australia is about kicking goals, not kicking Muslims who are your fellow team members. Unlike Bob Hawke in 1991 and John Howard in 2001, he needs to condemn bigotry immediately (previous prime ministers did condemn bigotry, but weeks after they were repeatedly requested to do so).

Within Arab conversations, cynicism prevails about the predictable pretext to war: “We will save you from the monster (that we created).” It is borne out of cyclical and sickening patterns.

Here’s a reminder: On December 20, 1983, US special envoy Donald Rumsfeld did a handshake deal with Saddam Hussein when Iraq fought against Iran after the Islamic revolution. On  August 2, 1990, Hussein flexed his muscles into Kuwait and had to be, ultimately, destroyed.

Between 1986 and 1989, the CIA funnelled $500 million in weapons into Afghanistan when Osama bin Laden fought with his mujahideen militants to successfully expel the Communist Russian invasion during the Cold War. On September 11, 2001, bin Laden’s militants, having morphed into al-Qaeda, flexed their muscles into the United States with terrorist attacks. They then became public enemy No. 1. number one

Since 2011, the US-Saudi-Qatar donors have aided and abetted the anti-Assad mercenaries. In 2014, the Islamic State monster flaunted US equipment that it had seized and now needs to be degraded.

Unless we stop history repeating itself, we are doomed to witness yet another Arab leader crowned then crushed in 10 years. The familiar narrative evokes Mary Shelley’s haunting tragedy about Dr Frankenstein, who creates the monster for his own benefit. When the monster turns on him, Frankenstein hunts him down to exact revenge.

Although the story is nearly 200 years old, the current war testifies that the moral remains unheeded. The modern name for Frankenstein’s monster in US foreign policy is blowback. It is an ironic name because the Arab landscape is treated as a barbecue with many burners. As the flame knobs are continually upgraded and degraded, blowback is inevitable and thousands of innocent civilians will continue to be scorched in the process. While fictitious Frankenstein made one mistake with a tragic ending, the factual Frankenstein keeps cooking up monsters then counter-monsters, and needs to be told: khalas (enough).

 

Posted on

Harris Park school targeted by anti-Christian threats

By Jade Wittmann

Parramatta Sun,

http://www.parramattasun.com.au/story/2568402/harris-park-school-targeted-by-anti-christian-threats/

 

Calm influence: Joseph Wakim outside the Maronite College of the Holy Family where a staff member was threatened. Picture: Gene Ramirez

Calm influence: Joseph Wakim outside the Maronite College of the Holy Family where a staff member was threatened. Picture: Gene Ramirez

At about 2pm on Tuesday, two men drove past the Maronite College of The Holy Family in a red hatchback with what resembled an IS flag and shouted at a nun form the school they were going to ”get you Christians” and ”slaughter your children”.

She notified the principal who contacted police.

About 1000 students from kindergarten to year 12 attend the school, on Alice Street.

College spokesman Joseph Wakim said parents had received newsletters explaining the incident and he hoped no one would ”use and abuse” social media to give an untrue version of events.

He said he was not surprised that the story had made it to London’s Daily Mail.

”One of the narratives in this post ‘war on terror’ situation is homegrown terrorism,” he said.

”We woke up this morning to the news of arrests in Brisbane and Sydney by the Federal Police of terrorist suspects.

”It’s really easy to conflate the two and think that these people are terrorists who are coming to exact harm on local Christians as they have done in Iraq [but] people are making this parallel that doesn’t actually exist.

‘‘Because we’re living in a volatile time incidents such as this — whether they happen in front of a church or a mosque or a synagogue — are going to attract a lot of attention.

‘‘Sometimes that attention can be counterproductive because people can become paranoid and defensive.

‘‘The really important message that the heads of both the church and the college are giving to people is that their faith teaches them to be people of peace, not people of anger or revenge.

‘‘I know from my close friends within the muslim community, they say exactly the same thing. ‘If you don’t understand your faith come to us, we will guide you’.

‘‘That has been the predominant message to make sure everyone feels safe and they work towards peace.’’

A school liaison officer from Rosehill Local Area Command visited the college this morning to inform and reassure students.

Mr Wakim said the officer’s brief speech was met with applause.

Police also attended mass at Our Lady of Lebanon Church, next to the college, last night as a precautionary measure.

‘‘There was no repeat incident but such verbal threats will always be taken seriously,’’ Mr Wakim said.

‘‘It gave people a great sense of comfort, peace and safety.

‘‘It’s important that whoever is behind this incident understands that they might have thrown a stone to create ripples [but] they’ve failed.

‘‘People aren’t panicking. They’re still sending their children to school, they still go to church to pray.’’

Posted on

Plenty of smoke but little fire in Tony Abbott’s concerns over Muslim radicals

http://m.theage.com.au/comment/plenty-of-smoke-but-little-fire-in-tony-abbotts-concerns-over-muslim-radicals-20140901-10ay16.html

http://bit.ly/1B8AlGQ

Published in The Age, 2 September 2014

The Islamic State is emerging as a political movement.

 

The Prime Minister should be a beacon leading us out of the terrorism smoke, not fanning the flames.

Mr Abbott’s announcement that $13.4 million will be earmarked to “support community efforts to prevent young Australians being radicalised” is fraught with contradictions.

How can one allocate money to a “community” solution before we have any evidence-based research on the cause? There is no singular definable career path or pathology for the radicalised terrorist. Some are educated professionals who are drawn to ideology of a pure Islamic caliphate. Others are disenfranchised and unemployed, angry at their lack of belonging. Whether it is the pull or push factor, the allure of power and making history is a magnet for some.

The compounding factors may be idiosyncratic to the individual, compounded by their selected peers or by their selected social media. There is no evidence that the family or the “community” sanctions or supports this pathway to violent extremism. When discovered, these individuals appear to be leading a double life.

If “community” refers to Islamic organisations and mosques, they are rarely on the radar or habitat of these recluses. When was a radicalised jihadist recognised as a regular at a youth centre? These marginalised individuals appear to shy away from these “mainstream” professional agencies that encourage education and employment. Throwing the solution at the feet of Muslim community leaders implies that they are part of the problem.

While Mr Abbott is at pains to point out that his measures “are not directed against any particular community or religion”, this is refuted by his recent round of Muslim meetings. The leaders that the Prime Minister “consulted” last week while trying to sell his anti-terror reforms are the respectable officials and unlikely to be “consulted” by the radicalised jihadists.

The Attorney-General’s Living Safe Together website affirms that “there is not just one path to violent extremism”, and that “extremists exploit social and economic conditions, and individual vulnerabilities to recruit and motivate others”. However, it also affirms that “many projects are already under way across Australia under the Building Community Resilience Grants and Youth Mentoring Grants Programs”. This begs the question: has Mr Abbott announced a continuation of an existing funding?

Mr Abbott claims that “the best defence against radicalisation is through well-informed . . . local engagement”. But his concerns about returning radicalised extremists becoming “involved in terrorist activity here” may be ill-informed. ISIS is not al-Qaeda. The Islamic State is emerging as a political movement that is founded on reclaiming and expanding its own territory, commencing with Iraq and Syria.

Their enemies are infidels in their caliphate who refuse to swear allegiance to caliph Abu-Bakr al Baghdadi. Their ethnic cleansing is driven by a sense of victimisation and vengeance. As confirmed by many “rear-view mirror” empirical studies on the radicalisation process, angry political views are the prerequisite, not religious intolerance.

Unlike al-Qaeda, which launched attacks on foreign soil, this offshoot recruits fighters for its own soil. There has been no official escalation of Australia’s “medium” risk of terrorist threat since 2003. Despite this unchanged risk assessment, Mr Abbott heightens the media hype by referring to what “we have seen on our TV screens and on the front pages of our newspapers”.

If one listens to the propaganda of the travelling circus that recruits youth into the Islamic State, they are replete with references to western racism and hypocrisy.

If Mr Abbott is serious about “activities to better understand and address radicalisation”, the onus cannot be left at the feet of the “community”. Ironically, the double speak in his announcement has already fed conspiracy theories that Muslims are being targeted, yet again. The differential treatment of Australians in the Israeli Defence Forces, which have killed over 2000 Palestinians in Gaza, remain a bone of contention for many who see all killing of civilians as immoral, regardless of uniform or citizenship. The maps of Sydney CBD seized inside a “bomb-making” house in Brisbane failed to attract the usual terrorist headlines, perhaps because the suspect was not from the Middle East.

Even “moderate” Muslims have been angered by Mr Abbott’s recent ultimatum that “you don’t migrate to this country unless you want to join our team”, especially given that near half of the Muslim population was Australian-born.

Repeated references to “Team Australia” reduce these issues to a sport where the non-players are rendered non-Australian. Mr Abbott may be wise to play down the politics of fear by stating “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear”.

The hype around home-grown radicals planting bombs is real, and has been spurred by the free publicity given to Islamic State scaremongering. But planting the solution at the feet of the community is not realistic.

They need to be coupled with government efforts to stop the divisive language and foreign policies that cause the very radicalisation that the Prime Minister is ostensibly diffusing.

Posted on

ISIS: Lessons from the KKK

http://thehoopla.com.au/isis-lessons-kkk/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvhsiEHFctY&feature=player_embedded

ISIS: LESSONS FROM THE KKK

Published in The Hoopla, September 2, 2014

Multiple choice question: Was it ISIS, KKK or Al Qaeda that was described as a “terrorist organisation, which in its endeavours to intimidate, or even eliminate those it dislikes, using the most brutal of methods”?

This is how US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas referred to the Ku Klux Klan in 2003. It echoes why Al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri disavowed all links with ISIS in February when he accused them of sedition in Syria and condemned them for the “blood that was shed.”

The American KKK and the anti-American ISIS may appear a world and a century apart, but some have already alluded that ISIS is to Muslims what KKK is to Christians.

A closer look at KKK’s pitfalls may shed light on how to defeat ISIS.

In origin, both organisations were a resistance to a local invasion. The many incarnations of ISIS were borne out of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, while KKK was borne out of the post-Civil War era in 1865 when the Republican Party passed the Reconstruction Act, granting ‘equal protection’ to former African slaves. The KKK refused to recognise the freedom of African Americans.

While ISIS initially sought to restore their version Sunni supremacy in Iraq, KKK sought to restore white supremacy in America’s South.

Both sought to reclaim a ‘pure’ homeland. In the ISIS propaganda video ‘End of Sykes-Picot’, the Prophet’s ‘successor’, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, was dubbed the ‘breaker of borders’. His ISIS troops trample over the 1916 post-Ottoman empire boundary between Syria and Iraq and declare that “the legality of all emirates, groups, states and organisations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority”.

KKK also fought for its romantic view of the ‘invisible empire of the South,’ calling its leader a Grand Imperial Wizard. Their xenophobic slogans yearned to maintain the status quo. A magnet used by both movements is trying to make the complex simple – extremely simple.

The ISIS leader was a high ranking veteran from the war against the US invasion in Iraq, while the KKK founders were high ranking veterans from the Civil War.

The name ISIS is a translation of an Arabic acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (greater Syria), ad-Dawlat al-Islamiyya fi al-Iraq wa as-Sham (DAESH). By contrast, KKK was a name based on the Greek word for circle and was concocted in humour by six veterans for their fancy-dress social club in 1866. They later learned that their white costumes with astrological symbols resembled ghosts which frightened superstitious African Americans.

While ISIS claims to have 16 wilayat (provinces) in Iraq and Syria with over 100,000 troops, KKK has 100 klaverns (chapters) and over 5000 members, mainly in South and Mid-West USA. Their peak membership in the 1920s reached 4 million.

Initially, only White Anglo Saxon Protestants could join the KKK, and Catholics were among their targets during the 1915 economic downturn alongside Jews and immigrants. The cross lighting ceremony began in the 1920’s to symbolise the cleansing fire of Christ that cleanses evil from the land and lights the way from the darkness of ignorance.

However, the modern landscape of white supremacy has forced many KKK chapters to accept non-Christians.

Similarly, ISIS regards Shiites and Alawites as infidels, not as Muslims. Despite their religious symbols, both ISIS and KKK have morphed into political movements about territory, cleansing, vengeance and power.

While Al Qaeda denounced the splinter group ISIS as overly violent, the first Grand Wizard, General Nathan Bedford Forrest tried to disband KKK for the same reasons in 1869.

Their supply chains of funding and finance are poles apart. ISIS controls over US$2 billion from oil fields seized in eastern Syria, Mosul’s central bank, donations from Gulf Arabs, business extortions, kidnapping ransoms and weapons stockpiles.

By contrast, KKK relies on their member fees and paraphernalia sales. This is one of many reasons for their repeated cycles of collapse, apart from their resurgence in the immigration boom of the 1920s and the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Since the 1970s, skin-head and neo-Nazis have proliferated in the white supremacist scene which has rendered the KKK brand name as the grandfather’s hate group. The modern groups rely on social media rather than BBQs and Klanta Klaus.

Unlike Al Qaeda, ISIS recruits Westerners through a highly coordinated social media presence including YouTube, Twitter, theme songs and their online magazine Dabiq. Their carefully executed videos attract global attention as they showcase their brute force and rapid results.

Modern racists have been put off by the lynching of innocent African Americans as they have more modern targets in mind. As the KKK membership attracts people with violent or anti-social natures, and they remain US citizens subject to criminal law, many leaders have been convicted and removed. With ISIS creating their own citizenship and jurisdictions, they appear immune from state laws.

The domestic terrorists beneath white KKK hoods have killed 3446 African Americans. The global terrorists beneath the black ISIS hoods have killed 50,000 Arabs, and counting.

While KKK was roundly denounced by churches, ISIS has also been denounced by Muslim leaders such as the Grand Mufti of Egypt who dismissed the reactionary caliphate as an ‘illusion.’

Just as KKK does not represent Christians, ISIS does not represent Muslims. Unlike the weak national leadership of KKK, the ISIS leader remains an elusive engineer of fear and media.

The KKK brand name was tarnished by its brutality and overtaken by groups with a different methodology and different targets. If the ISIS brand name becomes tarnished by its brutality against fellow Muslims and other minority groups, it may be overtaken by a splinter group that is more interested in territory than purity.

The KKK may not be able to teach us how to conquer ISIS, but it may teach us that its most powerful enemy may be within its own circles – especially former members who have become reformed and speak out. The repulsion by pure evil may trump the attraction to a pure territory.

These movements peak when fear peaks. They thrive on staged spectacles and free publicity which feeds into their power. We can only fan their flames if there is oxygen, and our media is their oxygen, inadvertently paying for their global recruitment and fear campaign.

To snuff out their flame, we need to stop retweeting their propaganda. The power of stopping supply costs nothing, but saves lives.

*Joseph Wakim OAM is the author of ‘Sorry We Have No Space’ (2013). He is an independent writer who has had over 500 opinion columns published in all major newspapers for over 20 years. He is the Founder of Australian Arabic Council and a Former Multicultural Affairs Commissioner. He blogs at www.josephwakim.com.au and is on twitter @WakimJ